Don't think we (Americans) would be happy if another country invaded and started capturing people to face trial in their country.

This is naive. No other country would dare do this to the US because the US would simply rain literal hellfire upon them.

Your mistake is in equating the US to other countries. You cannot. It is a superpower.

When other countries act hostile to the US, it can simply ignore their sovereignty at a whim, and this is a huge benefit to living in US.

Is it unfair? Sure. Who cares?

This is wrong and hilariously short sighted. Other countries don't respect America due to military might - they do so because of decades of mutually beneficial trade agreements. Soft power is infinitely more useful than hard power.

Both play a significant role. Many countries absolutely respect us because of our military might. They rely on it because they don't want to divert funding from welfare to build out their own militaries. As such, they ally with us, creating inroads to trade et al.

Obviously, there's more than just military might, we have the most innovative and powerful economy on the planet as well.

However, with a country like Venezuela, where none of our allies truly care what we do (sure, they might blow hot air but whatever), we are free to use hard power to achieve our objectives.

You can take that into the past tense now I think.

People who don't live in a superpower. People who care about international law. People who would rather the most powerful countries didn't act like bullies whenever it suits their interests.

"Who cares?" was glib on my part, I admit. It was obviously stated from the perspective of an American relying on that power, towards other Americans.

However, international law has always been a thin veneer over the reality of international relations. History shows that nations act in their own self-interest, regardless of the "rules."

The concept of one country "bullying" another is irrelevant moralizing. You are applying playground rules (or the rules of civil society) to a global stage defined by anarchy: there is no "teacher" to stop the "bullying" here. It is a zero-sum game of security and power. At this level, "bullying" isn't a meaningful concept, only leverage is.

Should the world be this way? I wish not. Political realism is a grim framework. Unfortunately, game theory tells us that so long as any one superpower believes in realism, the rest of us must as well, or risk getting outmaneuvered. And Russia/China certainly believe in it.

> "Who cares?" was glib on my part, I admit. It was obviously stated from the perspective of an American relying on that power, towards other Americans.

> there is no "teacher" to stop the "bullying" here.

It's funny how the same person can mention "realism" and then proceed to "leverage" in the same conceptual realm of thought about the present day US. Just wait until three to four (insignificantly) smaller powers collude, target, and act against you like hyennas do, then try applying your leverage of ... what exactly?

"Realism" is not being used in the sense of the colloquial word, but as in "political realism," the framework that governs international relations between most superpowers today and in which "leverage" through hard or soft power is the core concept.

The United Nations was created to avoid future world wars by managing conflicts. If the US decides as the world's superpower to go on an imperialist rampage through the Americas without regard for what the UN, Europe or Russia & China thinks, eventually the rest of the world is going to team up like the Allies during WW2.

The UN is simply ignored by all superpowers, and many lesser powers. Failed experiment. It is, at best, a forum for communication, but with no real enforcement capacity of any "rules."

> Is it unfair? Sure. Who cares?

What do you mean, "who cares"? Obviously a lot of us not from the US care, and many Americans care, too.

It should obviously be read as: "Who cares [that matters to the superpower at hand, and are they willing to actually do anything about it?]"

Even if the answer to the first part can be narrowed down to a few nations, the answer to the second part can be narrowed down to zero.

Israel did that in Argentina with Adolf Eichmann, and the US celebrated it.

They actually had 6 million good reasons.

And he was head of state? (retorical question).

What Trump just did is an act of war, undeclared and deceitful in every way.

It makes diplomacy much harder to do in the future. It makes the US untrustworthy.

> It makes the US untrustworthy.

That's explicitly been the case since 45 was elected a second time. Even if we get an adult in charge again, there is no guarantee of stability anymore with the way the population is.

Like who? Biden a puppet with dementia, Obama invading Libya and helping kill Gadaffi (and actually killing his family), as well as drone strikes on individuals in lots of middle eastern countries, Bush and Iraq/Afghanistan, Clinton and .. Iraq? but also war on drugs and Mexico border fence. Previous Bush - Iraq again?? Before that, South America again.

Biden became worse in the last year, but he wasn't a 'puppet', certainly not like the current president is. I'm not a fan of Obama's actions but he at least gave justification instead of inventing it and lying like Bush.

Kamala was the obvious choice and the only adult running in the last election, but she lost largely due to sexism, racism and gullibility of the red state population.

Assuming we get to have another election, we'd hopefully have someone like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren.

Democratic rejected Kamala resoundingly in the primaries, and then the Democratic leadership tried to force her down everyone's throat. That's on them, not the voters. They asked people to eat a sandwich some shit on it instead of a shit sandwich and not surprisingly voters weren't too enthused.

No, it's on the voters, 100%. A primary would have been messy. She may not have been everyone's first choice, but she was 100% the responsible choice. People screwed over the country out of spite, but that's 100% in line with how immature and uneducated the US population is. Not to mention bigoted in various ways.

Obviously she was not everyone's first choice. She was almost no one's first choice. Democrat voters let her know that when they only gave her ~7% support in the 2020 primaries. Maybe a messy primary that everyone feels a part of would have been better than a few leaders of the Democratic party attempting to anoint the next president. Maybe you think it was the responsible choice, but that certainly isn't what Obama thought in 2024, since he was pushing for open primaries before his hand was forced into endorsing Harris.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both performed significantly better than Harris did in the 2020 primaries. Maybe one of them would have been the responsible choice.

> Obviously she was not everyone's first choice. She was almost no one's first choice.

Right, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter that she wasn't the ideal choice, it only matters that she was so much significantly better than the alternative.

Clearly that was a miscalculation then. Maybe because when people vote, most people don't think "Who is better - Trump or Harris?", they think "Do I like my party's nominee?"

I agree, the problem is the voting population. Democracy doesn't work when you have such a petty ignorant population.

Bernie Sanders vs. Trump. That would have been interesting. Two populists, but also two geriatric white men. Trump would have the advantage of insults and better media savvy, but Bernie would have the advantage of not being Trump (and not being tied to Biden either).

If Trump successfully stole the election in 2021, I'm sure there would have been many Americans who would be happy for Canada or England or France to capture him and put him on trial..

That other country will quickly learn why America doesn't have free healthcare ;)

Bombing a capital city and kidnapping its political leader and hijacking its oil tankers is not the same thing at all. Not to mention Pakistan was and is officially an ally of America, and despite them harboring terrorists, officially Osama was a criminal there too.

Who is "we"?

America

Osama Bin Laden wasn't the leader of Pakistan, he was just hiding there.

Capturing the de facto leader (elected or dictator) of a country is an act of war.

You could argue the war is justified, or that this dictator was bad for both his country and the US, but it's still an act of war.

How come the US can engage in acts of war without legally declaring it? Shouldn't congress be involved?

We all mocked Putin's "special military operation", why are we not accusing the US of doing the same thing?

That will really be up to the new Venezuelan regime to decide whether it was an act of war or not. I don't think Maduro will have much ability to declare it as such.

Is your position that if someone commits a coup, some other country or the international community can't go in and uninstall that person from power?

Regardless of whether the leader of a country was a dictator, elected or not, another country going in and kidnapping the acting leader within the borders of his own country is an act of war.

This doesn't depend on what the successors think. They might later declare this act of war was necessary for the liberation or whatever, but it's still an act of war.

You may agree with the act, but it's an act of war.

Do you dispute this?

Well, I'm certain Maduro considered it an act of war. But he's not president any more. Does the current President of Venezuela consider it an act of war?

> Well, I'm certain Maduro considered it an act of war. But he's not president any more.

It doesn't matter what Maduro thinks. It doesn't matter whether he's a bad guy or a dictator. The situation after the fait accompli also doesn't matter.

What matters is that the military of a country crossing the borders of another country without permission, to conduct a military operation, and kidnapping the (de facto or legal, doesn't matter) leader of said country is an act of war.

There's no "it depends". It might be a justified act of war, but it's an act of war.

It boggles the mind that you dispute this. You seem to be confused, mentally adding "evil" or "illegal" to the words "act of war".

> Does the current President of Venezuela consider it an act of war?

Yes. Why does it matter?

> Is your position that if someone commits a coup, some other country or the international community can't go in and uninstall that person from power?

I find the assumptions behind your question fascinating.

Where did I say anything about what a country can or cannot do? A country can do whatever its military might and ability to absorb repercussions allows it to do.

This is completely unrelated to whether the path the country does decide to take constitutes an act of war or not.

If you're asking me whether I like that the US is playing world police and deciding who must face the law, and take them by force anywhere in the world, weeeell... let's say it's really messy to try to justify the US when it supports some coups, some dictators, and some brutal regimes, but acts against others, and the overall rule seems to be "if they play ball with the US it's ok, if they don't then war".

A small consolation is that the US is seemingly stopping their horrifying practice of extraordinary renditions and torturing suspects abroad, outside the scrutiny of US society and institutions. I think that was Bush era, but maybe it persisted during Obama too.

charges for what? he is a Venezuelan in Venezuela. You can't say "he broke our laws" and take him to fucking New York.

That said some people in the US ought to catch international charges for human rights violations of all sorts

Sure you can. Why do you think we could go into Pakistan and assassinate someone there?

I have yet to see it in this thread, but the WSJ reported that the "crime" they "extradited" him for is running a drug cartel and dumping tons of cocaine into the US.

I know this is what they claim (well, they also say because of oil and because he was friends with US rivals, but that's less defensible), but anyone really believe this is about drugs? Was there ever any proof Maduro was a cartel boss?

They are getting their message very confused. Is this about drugs? About the Venezuelan elections? About oil? All of the above? None of the above? Who knows anymore.

Still waiting for the shoes to drop on Osama and Saddam.

> It's not a war they were just capturing someone to face charges.

Invading a foreign country with military force is a war even if the purpose is to effect an arrest. And when the President claims that the intent is also that the US will run the country afterwards, its even more clearly a war.

> In the same way we didn't need to declare war against Pakistan to go in and get Osama

Congress had already exercised its power to declare war with an open-ended declaration almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, which covered the operation direct against the head of al-Qaeda.

https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf